People who wed more recently are more likely to stay together in their first 13 years.
Photograph: Andrea Matone/imageBroker/Rex Shutterstock

Marriage and divorce trends show that couples in England and Wales who wed or were recently married in the noughties were less likely to divorce within a decade or so, compared with the previous two decades, according to Guardian analysis of ONS data.

In the 1970s, the proportion of marriages ending in divorce before their 13th anniversary stood at 22%. It rose to 28% in the 1980s and 30% in the 1990s, the ONS figures showed.

However, in the decade to 2010, this trend has reversed, with 27% of marriages ending in divorce before the couple reach their 13th anniversary.

A common pattern in all decades for which figures are available is a peak in the chances of divorce between the fourth and eighth anniversary. Again, there is a downward trend among more recent couples – in other words, they have a better chance of making it to their eighth anniversary.

The divorce rate rose rapidly in the 1970s following the introduction of the 1969 Divorce Reform Act, which made it easier to break an unhappy union. The act allowed couples a mutually agreed divorce after a separation of two years.

In 1970, there were five divorcees per 1,000 married people; this proportion rose to a record high of 14 per 1,000 in 1994.

Things changed after that point as divorce rates started to fall. In 2012, there were 10 divorcees per 1,000 married population in England and Wales, a similar level to 1976. Since 1994, the total number of divorces has fallen by 25% to 118,140 in 2012.

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What is driving the apparent stabilisation of modern marriages?

Firstly, marriage is not as popular as it once was. Although there has been a slight reversal in recent years, the rate of people marrying has steeply declined since the 1970s. Couples who might have married and subsequently divorced a few decades ago may now not marry at all.

Meanwhile, cohabiting couples are the fastest growing family type in the UK. As the total number of families in the UK increased by 13% over the past 20 years, the number of families headed by cohabiting couples more than doubled.

The rate of couples cohabiting before tying the knot has steadily increased from 60% in 1995 to 85% in 2011.